The Spirit of Unfinished Business
by Catherine E. Grant
Summary: Like in Last Hurrah, Jack has the bad feeling he's being haunted. Only this time, he's not the one seeing Goldie. The new kids on the block get some late night advice from Rachel Goldstein at dealing with their grieving colleagues.


THE SPIRIT OF UNFINISHED BUSINESS  
Author: Catherine E. Grant (avatar_31@angelfire.com)  
  
Disclaimer: Yeah, I wish. They're the property of Hal and Southern Star, still. I'm trying, but.  
  
Summary: Like in Last Hurrah, Jack has the bad feeling he's being haunted. Only this time, he's not the one seeing Goldie. The new kids on the block get some late night advice from Rachel Goldstein at dealing with their grieving colleagues.   
  
-  
THE SPIRIT OF UNFINISHED BUSINESS  
-  
  
Donna was pretty bored. There was nothing to do on the front desk all day. Helen was busy upstairs, having her butt kicked for something the D's did, again, she'd be down soon to kick theirs when they turned up. She sighed.   
  
"Why'd I ever reckon I wanted to be a copper, hey?" Donna muttered.   
  
Concentrating hard she spun her pen between her fingers. Syskie had bet her ten bucks she couldn't get it, so hah! She had him now.   
  
"Bad day?" a warm voice asked sympathetically.   
  
She looked up in surprise; she hadn't heard anyone come in. The speaker was a fairly pretty brunette, perhaps just over 30, with the most radiant pair of blue eyes Donna had ever seen. And she hadn't heard her come in.   
The constable blushed, she must have pretty obviously been daydreaming on duty.   
  
"Yeah," she muttered. "You know how it gets, nothing going?"  
  
"Yeah" the woman replied. "I've seen quite a few slow days myself, ya know?"  
  
Donna blinked. "You a copper?"  
  
The woman grinned. "Nah. I mean, why'd I wanna be a copper, right?"  
  
"Right." Still fiddling with her pen Donna dropped it over the side of the counter.   
  
"S'okay, I'll get it" The strange woman replaced the pen on her desk. Hurriedly Donna put it away in the drawer. It was Helen's, after all, and she didn't want to be accused of losing it. When she looked up, the woman was gone.   
  
"Damn" Donna swore softly. "I coulda sworn there was someone there."   
  
But the room was empty. After staring around in puzzlement for a moment, the constable returned to her paperwork.  
  
-  
  
Alex sat down at her desk and glared at the overflowing mound of paperwork.  
  
"Shit, shit, shit" she muttered, tempted to sweep the whole lot with her hand onto the floor.   
  
"Why can't Mick take some of the bloody work? What does he get paid for?"  
  
"Probably down at the pub getting pissed mate, that's all we do all day, you know" declared Jack Christie as he wandered in with two coffees. "Yours is the one with sugar."  
  
"Ta mate. Say, d'ya reckon you could help me out a bit here?" she gestured at the paperwork. "Look at all this. It's bloody impossible! Hawker wants it all by tomorrow!"  
  
Jack laughed and Alex ground her teeth. "Sorry but I've got a case, see ya round."  
  
"Mind if I tag along?"  
  
"Na sure, go for your life, but Hawker'll be pretty pissed if he doesn't get all that by tomorrow! Catch you at Cutter's later?"  
  
"You bet."  
  
Still laughing, Jack strolled out, leaving Alex glaring in frustration at the mound of work. Out of the corner of her eye she saw someone standing outside the office and looked up helplessly, hoping to attract Mick's attention. 'If he goes and buggers off now, I swear I'm gonna kill him' she promised silently.  
  
But it wasn't Mick. The woman looked vaguely familiar and Alex had the sense of having seen her around before. A case, maybe? Undercover? Yeah, that was probably it. She took another sip of her coffee and looked up again; the woman was still there.   
  
"Look, whattya want? If you're the paperwork fairy, you can get your butt in here pronto, and get to work as of yesterday. If not, bugger off! I feel like a friggin' zoo exhibit in here." Alex waited expectantly to see what she'd do. Probably one of those IA types to see if we're still playing happy families. She hated them.   
  
She kept staring, but after a moment it seemed the woman wasn't there anymore. What? She rubbed her eyes but the figure didn't disappear. 'Must be the light or my eyes.' Shrugging, Alex went back to the mountain of forms. She didn't really care one way or another.  
  
-  
"Hey Alex, the dogs brought Mr Fancini in for questioning. Seems he tried to do a runner." Reilly interrupted his partner's reverie.  
  
"Yeah, okay. Be there in a tic." Alex jumped to her feet and cleared the office before the paperwork grew teeth and followed. Mick couldn't help laughing. "You're a bit eager to see me, aren't you?" he grinned.  
"Yeah in your dreams Mick Reilly"  
  
She heard laughter behind her, but when she spun round there was no one there. Reilly gave her a funny look but she shook it off lightly, "Nah, just thought I'd left something behind."   
  
'Funny' thought Mick as they walked along. 'She's not carrying anything.' Alex could tell what he was thinking from the look on his face and was glad he didn't bring the topic up.   
  
Fancini was guilty and they got a warrant to search his house. There they found the remains of the heroin stash they'd first discovered abroad a luxury yacht drifting abandoned in the Harbour. He cried innocent, but the D's found his fingerprints all over the stash and the money in his waterproof briefcase proved stolen.  
  
"Silly bugger" commented Alex when they headed over to Cutters. "You'd have thought he would have tried to hide his involvement, it's not as though we even had any other suspects or anything."  
  
"Ah, some are just stupid like that, it's what makes our job such a joy. Buy ya a drink?"  
  
"Yeah, don't mind if ya do!"  
  
The bar was crowded with people from the station. Squeezing in the two D's found room at a table where Jack and Donna were already sitting. The young constable looked uncomfortable in the sergeant's company, but neither Quinn nor Gavin were anywhere to be seen and it was obvious she'd chosen to sit with him than rather by herself.  
  
'Or maybe he just sat next to her and she didn't have a choice,' mused Alex.  
  
"Yeah, over here, two beers, Mick's buying!" She signalled the bartender.   
  
"Yeah, that's right, drink me dry!" he muttered good naturedly.  
  
"You OFFERED!" she exclaimed. "Michael Jonathon Reilly, that's enough!"  
  
Both Mick and Jack looked at her funny. "Where did *that* come from?" Jack asked finally, still giving her s strange look.   
  
She shook herself. Where *had* it come from? "I'm um, not exactly sure" she admitted after a while, "it just seemed the right thing to say."  
  
"How'd you know me middle name was Jonathon?" pressed Reilly, "it's not in me file and I don't normally admit to it."  
  
"You must have told me sometime, yeah thanks, yep, he's paying, cough up Mick."  
  
When the drinks were on the table the two D's resumed grilling their partner. "I still don't see how come you said that," Mick muttered. "It's not right, you don't even normally say things like that."  
  
"Oh, leave her alone" broke in Donna. These detectives were just normal people, she'd concluded, normal people who bitched in their off-hours like anybody else.  
  
"I mean, I had a funny turn today. I was at the counter, alone, like usual, fiddling with Helen's pen-"  
  
"The fountain one? Oh, you're a naughty girl Donna, if the boss had caught you with that, she'd have"  
  
"I'd have what?" interrupted Helen as she took the final empty seat.   
  
"Nevermind! Look, will you shut up people and let me go on with my story!" exclaimed Donna.   
  
"Okay, okay"  
  
"Well, I was fiddling with the pen, and then this woman says, "Bad day?" I says yeah, we talk for a bit, I ask her if she was a copper, cos she sounded like it, you know? But she says nah, what would I be one of them for? Then I drop me pen and she picks it up for me, I lean over to put it in the drawer, and when I look up, she's gone. And the doors were shut, she wouldn't have any time to leave the room, but she was gone! It was kinda creepy. Hey, it was!" she defended on seeing Mick's sceptical look.  
  
"Sounds like my funny experience" commented Alex sardonically. "I was in the office, doing paperwork - he'd just dumped me for a case" she dug Jack in the ribs with her elbow "and I see this woman outside, just watching. Seems kinda sad, wistful, but not depressed. After a while I yelled at her to come in or bugger off, then she was gone. Vanished. One moment she was there, then - poof! Gone."   
  
"What did she look like?" probed Donna, curious.   
  
"Brown hair, 5'9", blue eyes, neatly dressed" said Helen in a tired voice. All eyes turned to her. More than one realised for the first time how exhausted she looked.   
  
"Shit Helen, you look buggered" Alex blurted out, then made as if to cover her mouth with her hand. "Sorry, I didn't mean that like it sounded, it's just"  
  
"I know." Helen smiled, but the ragged look didn't go away.  
  
"Anyhow, how'd you guess? You see her too?"   
  
A quick nod from Donna confirmed the description fitted her 'suspect,' too.   
  
"No," she sighed, "but I wish I had, I've been thinking about her all day." At several raised eyebrows, she added "it was her birthday."  
  
Slowly, Jack nodded. "I miss her too."  
  
"It's so bloody hard" Helen whispered, clenching her hands together. "You know, I never really said this, but she was my best friend. I could always talk to her, say what I couldn't say to anyone else. She was the kind of friend people'd die for. Nobody pushed Rachel Goldstein around."  
  
"Oh" Donna and Alex shared a mutual look of understanding and surprise. Rachel Goldstein. The woman was a legend in her own right. Over six months on from her death, the station still had the air of a building waiting for it's rightful owner to return.  
  
"Um, why'd we see her then?" the detective managed finally. No one had any doubts as to just *who* the woman had been. "We never knew her."  
  
"You'd have liked her, especially you Alex. She was never the sort of woman to take crap from anybody, ever, she always gave as good as she got."  
  
"Sometimes better."  
  
"Yeah, it's lonely without Rachel."  
  
"Mind if I join you?" Jeff Hawker had approached without any of the group hearing, and pulled up a chair.   
  
"Nah, sure, go ahead. We were just talking about Rachel."  
  
"I know, she was a good woman, we're poorer without her. Not that we don't have a good D to replace her" he caught Alex's eye quickly, "it's just - not the same."  
  
"Uh-uh."  
  
Alex stood up abruptly, glancing at her watch. "Look, guys, I guess I'd better get going, I'm going turn in early."  
  
"Yeah, I'll come too" Donna added, getting up, "you can give me a lift home."  
  
"Yeah good-o"  
  
The pair grabbed their jackets, finished their drinks, and left the pub quickly. "That didn't go well" commented Mick. "That was really tactful. Now Alex is gonna feel second-rate, and Donna's gonna think she'll never fit in around here. Tactful, guys, well done."  
  
"I didn't want that" replied Helen, taking another mouthful of her drink.   
  
"It's just hard to-"  
  
"let go" Jack finished her thought.  
  
"Oh Rachel, why'd you go and leave me!" his fist hammered painfully down on the table top. For once, no one had an answer.  
  
"Oh Rachel, why'd you go and die?" echoed Alex outside the building. "No one there wants anyone else, they just want their special little Rachel Goldstein back. I mean, I know it's hard to get over the loss of someone you cared about, look at me and Mozzie"  
  
"Who?"  
  
"Just a friend."  
  
"More than that?"  
  
They walked along briskly. The car was still at the station.   
  
"I get the feeling this Rachel and Jack were a bit more than friends, too."  
  
"Hmmm"  
  
"Did she look sad to you?" Donna blurted out finally.  
  
"Kinda, but I don't think it was like really sad, just wistful, like I should be doing that"  
  
"Actually I'd rather leave the paperwork to you, Alex, you're so much better at it."  
  
They both froze, then turned around slowly.  
  
"Rachel."  
  
"Yeah, it's me."  
  
Alex laughed sarcastically. "You oughta get inside there" she indicated the Cutter bar.  
  
"Nah, they'll cope" the other woman said. "You're the ones I need to talk to."  
  
"How come?" Donna asked suspiciously.   
  
"'Cos you're going to have a bugger of a time dealing with them unless you understand a bit of what it was like, in the 'good old days,'" she explained. "Appearing to them's gonna only open up old wounds, they need to heal before they can begin to accept anything."  
  
"Will they ever?"  
  
"Yeah, give 'em time - and company. Donna, just give Mick a bit of support, okay? He needs it; he just got settled in here then he lost what he thought he could depend on most. I bossed him around so much, he got used to it and now he has to learn to cope without a 'safety net' to fall back on. That's one reason I'm still here, I stuffed up a bit and I've got some unfinished business."  
  
"What - do you really think he could like me?" she said, curious. "I mean, not that I - or anything"  
  
"Yes, you do." Rachel grinned. "I'm - what's that word Frank used again - omnipotent. Only big word he knew, I spose!" she grew serious again. "You two'll make a good couple, you just gotta work out the rough edges first. He's a good bloke, I reckon you'll be happy. As for you, Alex St Clare-"  
  
"Yes?" Alex found the full name treatment rather strange.  
  
"Help Jack, okay? He needs a friend more now than ever. And if something comes of it, great. Otherwise, just be there for him when he needs it, and he'll pull through for you when you least expect it. He needs someone now, who can help him get through this without getting mired in it."  
  
"You two were close, weren't you?" the detective in Alex forced her to ask.  
  
Rachel sighed. "Not close enough, I'm afraid. I was never able to give Jack what he wanted - oh he thought it was enough - but he'll realise in time what I did, that it was only a shadow of the real thing. We were good together, but."  
  
The strangeness of the whole encounter finally overcome Alex and she broke down in the giggles. A glance at Donna was enough to send her over the edge, too, and both women collapsed outside the station, leaning on the railings for support.   
  
"You've quite finished now?" something in Rachel's tone emphasised she wouldn't take no for an answer.  
  
"Yeah, sorry, it's just"  
  
"Difficult to accept? Look, you're doing better than I would have, okay? This isn't really my line, but I'm stuck now!" A lively grin flashed across her face, lighting up her eyes and softening the harsher lines. "Frank would've had a field day about this-"  
  
"Who was Frank?" Alex recovered enough to ask.  
  
"My partner, best friend...soul mate. Never realised that until he'd gone" the last was said in a whisper so quiet the other two barely caught it. "He'd been getting fed up with the job and decided to take two years off, sail to Venezuela, have a break. Asked me to go with him, but I said no, the job, David, I had too much holding me here - but they'd have all been here when I came back - David -my son- even wanted me to go, but I didn't feel I could.   
  
I wish I had" she added softly. "We were right, you know?" She turned pleading eyes on the other women.   
"I really loved him, still do. I like to think he's waiting for me, out there, somewhere...there's no way he could know, no one could get in touch with him."  
  
"Then go to him - if you were that close, he'd have known something happened, he'd be waiting for you to turn up." It just seemed like the right thing to say.  
  
It was. Rachel grinned, stretched casually. "Yeah, me and Francis will have a lifetime together - more than that, I reckon. Goldie an' Francis, yep, that's us. Partners."  
  
"Yeah, partners" agreed Alex.   
  
Rachel paused, then seemed to think of something else. "Just give them time, please?" she asked. "Irritate Jack, tease Mick, insult Jeff - I hear his fish love coffee granules - and be a friend to Helen, don't take crap from anyone-"  
  
"Oh, she doesn't!" interrupted Donna with a wicked and knowing gleam in her eye.  
  
All three laughed. "I don't have long - just try to understand - they're hurting - I can't do anything about it - please - you'll have to do it for me-"  
  
Her platitudes undermined her earlier statement of "they'll be right" as the lie it was.   
  
"Please"  
  
"We will," they promised together.   
  
Rachel grinned impishly, though she already seemed a little paler. "Take care of them for me, alright?"  
  
They nodded and she seemed to fade away.  
  
"Wonder where she is now?" Donna wondered aloud.  
  
The answer, when it came, seemed to hang on the wind like the voice of the trees.   
  
"-Unfinished business"  
  
They shared a grin. They both knew what THAT meant.   
  
-----  
"-Here's to Rachel, may her spirit rest in peace" declared Jeff a few weeks later at the Cutter bar after work.  
  
"She was a great woman"  
  
"Yeah, she was" Donna agreed wholeheartedly and exchanged a knowing glance with the other 'new kid on the block.' The times ahead were going to be tough but they were going to fit in here and they were gonna make it work.   
  
"-unfinished business" they caught the end of Helen's statement, and grinned simultaneously.  
  
"That Frank's gotta be a lucky bloke" declared Alex.  
  
The stares she got were worth it.  
  
Yep, the Water Police were getting back on track, and she'd be there when they did.   
  
THE END  
  
Words: 2962   
  
So, let me know what you thought, okay? I love getting feedback! Even negative stuff - cos I don't like you either then if ya flame me and I'm not above sending bitchy little emails in reply.  
  
Email: avatar_31@angelfire.com  



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